Shatter
by Shun Ren Dan
Summary: Sora didn't know what it was that drew him to Naminé; he just knew it was unhealthy. (AU)


Outside, birds chirped on and flew by in the night, their song hardly reaching the building's interior. Their little makeshift home-away-from-home rested in the same plot as a small dance studio, but the sound next door had died out hours ago, replaced by the quiet din of nature and the subtle hum of small town life. Inside, bright lights beat down upon Sora as he studied Naminé and the work they'd completed.

Truth be told, Naminé was the perfect partner to paint a mural with. She was thoughtful. Quick to help. She didn't much mind that his painting skills left a lot to be desired. There was a lot about her and her work that he admired, and if he were asked, it'd be hard not to admit that she'd done most of the work. If it were up to him, she would've gotten all the money to keep for herself. He hardly deserved any of it.

But...

It was hard to push back the guilt nagging at the back of his mind that he was doing something wrong. Kairi didn't like how often he and Naminé were pushed together by their schedules, but with the deadline approaching fast, there wasn't much he could do about that. Then there was the thought, the quiet suspicion that there was something more brimming under the surface of their budding friendship that he found hard to suppress.

It wasn't that he had feelings for her. Especially not plural. It was a different sort of sensation, one that brought with it a vague, difficult to define guilt. If he were being honest with himself, Naminé was definitely an attractive person; she was smart, beautiful, and careful in ways that he wasn't. She covered a lot of his gaps. That was why he figured they worked so well together. Alone, though, none of that would've been a problem. If he just thought it, kept it from slipping out like the secret it was, none of it would've been an issue at all.

But that wasn't the only secret he found hard to suppress.

Sora saw her in his dreams at night; flashes of intimacy that he didn't want and that neither one of them needed. She was a phantom plaguing his heart. It was hard to banish her from his thoughts when he should've been thinking about anything but her.

So long as he did nothing, let the feelings die, he figured it wouldn't be an issue.

He kept this in mind while she idly tapped a paintbrush against an open can, bringing a knuckle to her lip so that she could study the additions still drying on the wall. Their work was alive with color, but her outfit was muted: a pepper-gray off-shoulder top and snug, black leggings. Sora wasn't dressed much more elaborately, wearing little other than a sleeveless black tee that went over some gray sweatpants he'd washed the night before.

"That might do it," she announced, placing the paintbrush carefully across the can beside her.

A table full of different hues spread out at her side, its once-white cover littered with splashes of paint and splotches of color. Some of the cans were wide open, others covered by little plastic rims that served as replacements for tops that had been ripped off long ago.

She turned to face him.

"I'm glad we're almost done," he replied earnestly. "I don't think Kairi could take much more of me staying out with you like this."

"What do you mean?"

She asked the question like she didn't already know, but he felt certain that he'd touched on it once before. Hinted at it, at least. She brought her hands together and approached, concern playing across her face.

"She's been… uh, unhappy, I guess, that I've been spending so much time with you. She says it's kinda weird."

It was a little weird.

Looking back on the memory of their work thus far, there were some sessions that he could have missed. Technically, he wasn't even needed there that day; she could put things away herself, and if he was being honest with himself, it felt a little like he'd made an excuse to come see her one last time. It wasn't like they hung out away from their little makeshift studio anyway. Maybe he was thinking too deep into things. It made sense that he'd want to see his friend! He just wanted to congratulate her on the work they'd accomplished together. Didn't he?

The thing that didn't make sense was the way his heart began to beat faster with every step she took to close the gap between them. What, exactly, did he expect?

He thought back to the times he'd caught her staring just a little too long. Days where it seemed as though she couldn't bear to look at him at all. Sora could see none of that in her now.

"Unhappy," Naminé repeated, apparently perplexed. "Does she think… that we're doing something else?"

Sora shook his head.

"No, no, it's not that. She trusts me. She's just concerned is all."

Naminé's concern didn't vanish after Sora's explanation. In fact, it seemed to amplify. Absently, she twiddled her fingers, now not far from him at all. He could have reached out and touched her if he wanted. If he thought, for some reason, that he might find need to.

That thought brought him more comfort — discomfort — than it should have.

"Concerned."

"Yeah. I don't know why. It's like she thinks…"

Sora paused. Naminé continued looking up at him, eyes fixed on his face.

"I don't know, it's all sorta complicated."

She shrugged her shoulders noncommittally, a little of the concern draining from her face. It wasn't as though she was free of her own reputation. She was regarded as eternally distant, perpetually indifferent, and difficult to read. Few people were particularly close to her. He was pretty sure he knew her better than anybody.

Maybe that was why Kairi didn't like the two of them working together. It was as if she were sinking hooks into him over time, breaking through the membrane that was their distance to pull Sora closer to her than to the girl waiting for him at home.

A slow, dawning realization spread through her. In sequence, her shoulders slumped, her head lifted; Sora figured she must've found a sort of break in the ambiguity that clouded her perception of what he was trying to say.

"Well, it won't be complicated much longer, will it?"

"I guess not. We're pretty much done, right?"

She nodded her head.

He hardly noticed her inching closer to him, her legs taking her off the beaten path, guiding her on a roundabout route so that she stood right before him.

"Pretty much," she confirmed. Her knuckle once again rose to her lips. She was thinking about something. "Just a few things left to do, really. Let it all dry. Clean everything up."

Sora's heart skipped a beat. There was something in the way she spoke that told him that the sinful fears brewing in the back of his mind were threatening to transcend the barrier to become reality.

"Make another mess, perhaps," she said, leaning closer to him.

The hair on the back of his neck rose.

What did she mean by that, exactly?

"Maybe Kairi was right to be worried," she teased, her voice possessed by a grim musing. "You are quite handsome, you know."

He didn't know what to say. His gaze flocked to her lips, then to her eyes, then anywhere else, as if the ice there might freeze him permanently to the spot on which he stood.

"Desirable, in your own way."

She sounded so objective that she must've been kidding, but everything about the way she stood and the way her eyes lingered on him told him otherwise. She was testing him, measuring where he stood and how far he was willing to fall from heaven.

He went to say something, but she held her finger to her lips, succinctly shushing him.

Sora knew it wasn't right, but the sudden anticipation wrought havoc on his body. Every nerve felt like it was on fire and his heart was pumping out of his chest, drumming along to a hairpin beat that he was sure she could hear. She had to hear it; she was so close to him now, her blonde hair falling around her face so precariously close to his chest that he knew she could.

The serene, knowing grin plastered across her face was more dare than jest. She could hear the snare in his chest. She must've been thriving off of it like a conductor playing to a concert hall crowd.

Sora swallowed back the ball of saliva in his throat.

Naminé tilted her head.

He was both afraid to look away and afraid to keep looking, worried he would do something he would regret with someone he knew he shouldn't have been so close to in the first place. Even though they hadn't done anything, it already felt wrong, as if it were about to transcend the mundane into something more sinful.

She read that fear in him.

Her fingers — lithe, pale — rose to the side of his face to caress his cheek. If she was trying to comfort him, it wasn't working. No, he knew better than that. She wasn't comforting him. She was curious, and now that the object of her curiosity was within her reach, she wasn't going to squander her chance. He was sure that his face must've been crimson by that point, colored by the closeness and the unexpected intimacy.

"I'm not going to hurt you," she announced, as if he doubted that.

"That's not what I'm worried about," he said, unable to fight the words that fumbled out of his mouth.

"So why don't you go, Sora?"

Hearing his name from her lips did him no favors. It was both an invitation to stay and a challenge to leave, but he couldn't bring himself to commit to either. Like her, he was now the owner of a morbid sort of curiosity, halfheartedly determined to figure out how far they would fall.

He didn't like the way his heart leapt into his throat when he heard her say it, either.

By now, her fingertips were fixed, latched, onto the side of his face like anchors dropped into the sea. Heart beating fast, his left hand rose to pry her fingers away from his thoroughly red cheeks, but only found purchase on her wrist. He wanted to yank her away from him, save himself while he still could. Avoid the trap that he should've seen coming a mile away.

Naminé leaned before he could think to stop her, her lips falling woefully short of his and leaving him wanting. Her breath graced his face. Blue eyes traveled over his lips, committed them to memory, then flickered up to meet his. Speechless, Sora searched for some way to warn her that neither of them could really have wanted what would come next. He had Kairi. She had… someone, surely, and he knew that the girl in front of him would destroy him if they didn't stop while they could.

"You really should go," she whispered.

The feeling took him before he could hope to explain himself and he caved in before the silence could even settle. His hands moved to her face and ke kissed her, forcing his lips against hers and relishing in the gasp of surprise that she emitted. Her fingers moved to drum against his collar, her left hand dropping to his midsection. He didn't know when she'd backed him up against a table, but like cornered prey, it was evident that she now had him exactly where she wanted him.

She bit down on his lip. Shock rattled through him like recoil. Sora tore his mouth away from hers, unable to help it. He was still reeling when her kisses moved to the borders of his jaw, then to the topmost of his neck, leaving behind little lightning bolts that played across his skin. His breathing quickened as she reduced him to gasps. The hand that was on his midsection faltered, sinking low and then darting beneath the fabric of his shirt, pressing itself against his skin. Her fingers roamed the land over his waist and he shuddered, his own hands lost.

There were so many places that he wanted to put them that he felt paralyzed by it all. The guilt, by then, was gone, replaced by a more primal urgency that he felt obligated to fulfill. He wanted what was barred to him so badly that resistance was an impossibility. When people found out — it would all be gone. The righteousness in him was but ash, the kingdom he'd spent his life built burning.

Her fingers were pale ghosts, traversing with care entire swathes of his body. They were scrutinizers of dark corners, poking and stroking and moving along his arms, chest, and belly.

Naminé's lips returned to his. Sora framed her chin with his fingers. For an instant, they froze that way. Their new pact broke a moment later, breached by the crossing of Sora's tongue over Naminé's lips. It explored her mouth, eager to chase more of the euphoric sensation that she brought out in him through her touch. There simply wasn't enough— the desperate crossing they had fjorded before took on a more avaricious tint as Sora's other hand rose to cup her face.

She took a fistful of his shirt in one hand, leading him away from the desk and pulling the fabric over his head. There was no longer any need for such restriction. Only then did any of it feel real. With the heat from the ceiling lights beating down on him, Sora felt exposed.

Naminé beckoned him forward, erasing what remained of doubt and replacing it with a quiet temptation. Before long, her hands wound up in his hair, tugging at the chocolate locks atop his head as if they might bind her to the earth. Their lips separated, she rested with her forehead on his chin.

Meanwhile, his hands cupped her rear, exploring the subtle shape of her ass and relishing in the sensation that ruin brought him. He could imagine her bare and before him so clearly that by the time her fingers found his waist he hardly needed an excuse to squeeze her.

Sora tugged her forward so that she was pressed against him. She buried her head lower, against his chest, and for a moment, the two of them did little else but breathe. It was wrong to proceed, and Sora knew that, but in the moment none of it really mattered. He needed her so badly that the world could burn and he wouldn't have cared.

"It's not too late to stop," she lied. "You could go home. Tell her everything. Apologize. perhaps."

Every word was another breath against his skin. She was daring him to stop and recant it all, as if none of it had happened and as if the desire now brimming under his skin wouldn't eat him alive if he relented. When he didn't answer, she looked up at him, and he realized that she was toying with him in another way. Tugging at the strings of something other than innocence.

"Or."

He watched the way her lips curved as the word hit dead air, accompanied by the symphony of humming lights above that drowned out the speed of his heartbeat. Sora shot back an answer before he realized it.

"Or what?"

Her fingertips danced up his chest, walking until they found his shoulder. They slid back down him a moment later, carving a path that led to his pant strings. She toyed with them liberally, only to dig her fingers into the waistband of his boxers.

"You tell me, Sora."

"Tell you what?"

"What it is that you want of me. What you'd like me to do."

Leave, he thought, and stay so far away that I could never find you again.

Did he really have it in him to cross another line? He had never planned on it. He'd been so averse to it that the thought would've repulsed him weeks ago. Now, in the thick of it, he wasn't sure he had the constitution. She was a fantasy that he couldn't shake, and until she left he would find no peace. The command that fled his lips was breathless, harried by guilt and an anxiety unfamiliar to him.

"Get on your knees."

Naminé complied. Her eyes, two pools of ice, stared up at him expectantly. It was obvious what she was doing. She was making him even more complicit than before. Reminding him that their sins were not purely on her. Still, her fingers waited, frozen at his waistband. The thought of her lips wrapped around what made him a man overpowered what remained of reason.

"Pull them down."

She obliged, tugging down his boxers and exposing his manhood to the open air. It was already stiff, standing at full attention for her. Naminé reached for it, taking it in her left hand and lifting it so that she could examine it with a medical clemency. Her grip tightened and Sora's knees threatened to buckle. It wasn't the feeling, but how she'd drawn it out of him. She stroked him, once, then looked up to his face in order to gauge his reaction.

What she saw was a man in pain. Sora bit down fiercely on his bottom lip, his hands kneaded repeatedly into the flesh of his own thighs.

The strokes that followed were gentle and slow, performed with rhythmic precision. She quickened her pace when she saw him react, feeling his already hard cock stiffen further. He stared down at her from above, watching as her mouth crept closer and closer to his manhood — only to sink low to caress his smooth balls with her tongue.

He shivered; she kissed them, letting a low moan tumble free of her lips, alerting him to relish in the sight of her full, plump lips pressed against him.

Gingerly, she licked him again, and again, and again before moving onto his cock. Her first, slow lick down its shaft earned a subtle twitch. The second didn't garner quite the same effect, but by the way he swore under his breath, it was clear to her that Sora was enjoying it.

His fingers found her hair as she continued on, treating his dick as if it were an idol worthy of intimate worship. Every subtle movement and touch left him blank, more vulnerable than the one before. It wasn't long before he felt his legs start to go numb; leaning back against the table behind him as if it might stop the way his world was turning. It wasn't just the sensation of flesh on flesh, but the way she worked him up, the yearning still building in his belly.

She pulled his member slightly left, pressing her lips against the base of his shaft.

"Tell me," she whispered. The vibration couldn't have made him stiffer, but he swore it did. "Have you thought about this before?"

She paused, drinking in his silence.

"About me?"

One hand flocked to his face, as if to cover the redness in his cheeks. The other kept him steady on the desk, performing a subtle balancing act with his lower back.

"Yes," he confessed.

She rewarded him by taking the head of his cock into her mouth. At once, the world below his waist changed. Both hands moved to support her head as it bobbed up and down upon his manhood. It took all of his focus not to lose balance and fall backward, crumple to the floor between her and the desk — but surely that was the sort of reaction she craved. It was as if he hadn't really known her at all; as if the innocent girl he'd come to know was a facade for the witch now carving away at him.

Oral sex wasn't foreign to him; he and Kairi were far from innocent, but it felt so different when Naminé did it that it was almost a separate experience entirely. It was with a fervent interest, a desire beyond strange obligation and reciprocation. Usually, it was him that gave; to be treated so generously was…

Generously couldn't have been the right word.

She would extract a price out of him, one way or the other. That much was obvious. They hadn't been going for all that long, but he was starting to understand how she intended to treat him. It was carrot and stick.

He was proven right when he let out a particularly loud moan and she lifted her head, freeing his member from the heaven of her mouth with a wet pop.

She offered him two more strokes with her hand before grabbing his, pulling him away from the table, and reversing their positions. She hopped up, scooting onto the wood, and beckoned him forward with a finger. Stepping out of his pants, he obeyed her command, pressing his lips to hers and driving her back so that she was practically horizontal. Her fingers dug into his shoulder and his clawed at the outside borders of her thighs.

Each squeeze was harsh, vengeant — it was repayment for how she'd been leading him by a string. She winced, shivered, and breathed every time his fingers sunk into the flesh beneath the fabric, leaving little bruises that nobody but him would see. Her arms wrapped around the nape of his neck and he pulled her back up, allowing her to hang off of him, ass still on the desk, while he bit gently on her earlobe. She reacted immediately, squirming, tightening the loop of her arms.

"I've thought about this, too," he admitted, unbidden.

"Thought about you," he said, kissing the spot just beneath her ear and trailing more down her neck. His cock, still slick with saliva, twitched over the table's edge. She squirmed closer to him and it pressed against the fabric of her top. If she hoped to stop him from kissing, exploring more of her, she was misguided. "Thought about you and me."

Sora used the back of his hand to shift her chin, exposing her shoulders and the base of her neck to him. He kissed it with force, lowering the hand and allowing his fingers to dig into her sides. She swallowed; the sound reverberated in his ears as his right hand slowly slid under her shirt, roamed her belly, and then pushed her flat against the desk.

"I didn't know I wanted you."

She was breathing more heavily than before. Her hands were up by her head, arms limp, eyes somehow still calm despite the way she looked. Her hair, once pristine blonde, was now a mess of molten gold that swirled around her head like a conglomerate of straightened halos.

Looking back, Sora figured that the two of them still could have stopped there.

But they didn't.

Instead, he pulled her leggings off. She practically kicked them off when he got them to her feet, and he tossed them aside. With the black cloth stripped away, he was left with the bareness of her legs and a dark thong. He hadn't noticed before, but he felt certain he could've spotted it beneath her leggings if he'd felt the need to look.

He'd snuck glances of her here and there. Every once in a while. It had been innocent, before. There had been no crime in looking at her, respecting her appearance, admiring quietly from afar.

In the here and now, he sank to his knees and parted her legs. Her breathing practically stopped, as if this were the part that transcended her boundaries. Something about him seeing her up close, so intimately, was a departure from what she'd expected. To reassure her, he raised himself, kissed her belly, and then placed himself back between her thighs.

His fingers ran over the fabric of her thong, slowly spread to the flesh of her inner thighs, and slowly wandered downward to that he could position her legs over his shoulders. Carefully, he pulled her forward a little. She whimpered, closed her eyes, shielded her face with her hands while Sora planted kiss after kiss on the inside of her left thigh. She could feel his face beside her warmth, his hair brushing her belly. A tightness formed in her gut at the thought of him continuing on to unwind her.

Sora continued to massage her flesh with his fingers and his lips darted for the fabric of her thong… only to brush over it and continue kneading at her other thigh with soft kisses that led once again to fabric.

"Take it off," she commanded, lifting her hips.

Sora did as he was told and freed her. Only then did he place his hand just above her lower lips, allowing his thumb to brush against her clitoris; slowly, as if afraid she might suddenly flee, he rolled his tongue along her entirety, stopping just where his thumb rested and providing it with the gentlest bump. Naminé's legs wriggled as he did it again, the sensation apparently new to her.

Testing the waters, he explored her with his tongue.

The fingers on his other hand drummed, impatient, against her thigh. He wanted to badly to just dive in and take her fully, mark her as his in some immortal, primal way. That wouldn't sate the hunger in his heart, however; no, the desire brimming in him like molten rock threatened to spill over the ridge of all control. He wanted all of her, to experience every inch of her as thoroughly as possible, as if she hadn't driven him to want so much more than he ever imagined he'd take.

The next lick was far rougher than the others. His thumb slid away from her clitoris, exposing it to his mouth. He took it in with hardly a noise, relishing in the way she squirmed as he sucked it up and worked it with his tongue. He let it free a second later, applying a series of long, fast licks that made Naminé's knuckles whiten. A hand fell to grip his hair, her head leaned back over the table's far edge.

One leg lolled to the side when Sora pushed two fingers inside of her entrance. Naminé let out a low, soft moan as they bent inside of her, curling upward toward her belly. The motions on her clitoris slowed, matching the rhythmic tempo his fingers took as they cycled forward and back again. He could hear her breathing change, the way her haggard breaths became extended, slowed, as if she were forgetting to breathe.

He sped up.

Naminé's toes straightened over his shoulders. Both thighs clamped down on his head, squeezing him, trapping him between her legs as if it were a damnable prison instead of an indescribable haven. Everything about her was intoxicating; the scent of her perfume, light, the way sweat now clung to her like rainwater. Even the new flush in her cheeks and the way she squeaked and whispered quietly into the crook of her elbow. He couldn't hear what she was saying.

It probably didn't matter.

What mattered was the way her entire body wound like coil around his fingers. The way she bit down on her lip. The subtlety in how she unfurled, her legs suddenly limp. What mattered was the way he rose over her, kissing his way up her midsection to the fabric of her shirt — the way he removed it and tossed it with the rest of their discarded clothes. What mattered was the vulnerability on her face as he leaned back, mounting his manhood over her nethers.

"You didn't have to," she managed, as if suddenly ashamed of what they'd done thus far.

"You could still stop," she continued, as if she weren't loving every second. As if she didn't want him to go further; as if she weren't biting down on her lip and waiting, eager, for him to take her.

Naminé was a witch. A tamperer that cut the strings of the heart. How could he go back to Kairi after what she'd done to him? Kairi would know, immediately, the gravity of his sins. She would see it on his face, exile him entirely from her life. Would Riku judge him too? He couldn't imagine who would still stand beside him once he let them know the truth about who he was. The brand of shame she'd cast into his flesh would forever mar his conscience when he saw the friends he loved so dearly.

Yet, for as much as she'd condemned him, he couldn't say he didn't deserve it. Couldn't say he didn't, on some level, want that.

Whether he knew it or not, it was hard not to love a girl like Naminé. She wasn't as overbearing as Kairi. She was as peaceful and passive as Riku. She had a fire to her that simmered beneath the surface of her chilly eyes, waiting to be unleashed. She was what he loved about both of his friends, and it would've been a lie to say that the time he'd spent working with her wasn't something he'd prioritized over the last few months.

In her own way, Naminé brought upon him the truth.

Her feelings, whether she felt the same, he couldn't say.

"I couldn't," Sora finally replied, slowly pushing himself inside of her.

His hand pressed down against her belly, forcing the breath out of her lungs. Her subtle breasts bounced as he pulled back, thrusted in again, and established a rhythm. She wasn't busty by any means, her assets weren't the largest, or her hips the most wide, but she carried with her a sensuality beyond words. It was a wine, one that he felt content to drink in as she reached for his neck. Her legs found his waist, wrapping around him almost as tightly as the vice grip around his cock.

Every thrust left him seeing stars. Her body, still sensitive from the orgasm she'd endured moments ago, apparently agreed. She whimpered with pleasure after every other push, driving her body against him with a subtle rocking of her hips. The stiffness of his member hadn't wavered a bit in the time it took him to pleasure her earlier, and the way she felt around him lived up to every ounce of that anticipation.

Sora lost count of how many times he swore. Lost count of how many thrusts it took before he rose, her body still attached to his, and pressed her against the far wall. The new leverage allowed him to fuck her harder, more roughly.

"Please," she pleaded. "Harder, Sora!"

As if he weren't the one ready to beg.

He obeyed her command, lifting her between thrusts, savoring the sound of her body as it clashed with him. Her lips rose up to find his, her fingers rifled through his hair as if it were a pocket, grabbing on and tugging at everything in an attempt to draw free all that resided within him. Sora returned her fervent, feverish kisses with his own. Some met their mark, landing on her soft, plump lips. Others fell to the sides of her mouth, her cheek, even her nose.

Breathless, he persevered until a familiar stirring began at the tip of his manhood. He inhaled sharply while the feeling built. The rest of his body tensed. He still had her against the wall, he couldn't possibly…

"Do it," she commanded, voice hoarse. "I love you, just.. do it!"

The return to her more forceful demeanor made any attempt to resist futile. She tightened around him. Even her legs gripped him more forcefully, preventing him from drawing away, even if he'd wanted to.

Sora hardly lasted another second before the pressure building in his cock exploded inside of her, marking her in the most primal way. She gasped. Her head rolled back, bouncing against the wall. Sora nearly buckled, leaning forward and removing one hand from her ass so that he could keep himself up. A guttural grunt left his lips in the second that followed, pursued by a relieved groan that allowed the rest of his body to unwind as hers had in the moments prior.

For a moment, they were left with only the sound of their harsh, dogged breathing and the weight of what they'd done.

After what felt like an eternity, Naminé extricated herself from Sora, ducking under his arms on her way to find her bag. Sora stood there, silent as a sentry, hands pressed up against the wall. He didn't know what to say. They hadn't been tender, very long. There was no shroud of innocence over their actions. He'd done wrong.

Why did it feel so right?

His hands flocked to his face.

They were still there after Naminé got dressed and left the room. Before he knew it, she was back, her fingers peeled his away.

He didn't know where she went. He could no longer smell her sweat. Didn't know how long he'd been standing there, basking in the mistake he'd made. She turned him around to face her. She looked a lot more ginger than she had when they began. Gently, she took his hands in hers. When he didn't speak, she lifted hers to the sides of his face. His expression was blank.

"If you say it wasn't a mistake," she began, as if explaining some nebulous subject to a child. "Then it doesn't have to be one."

Naminé wasn't wrong.

"Do you want me to tell her for you?"

"No," Sora responded. "I…"

He would need to tell her.

"I don't know how… I didn't…"

Sora didn't know how Naminé felt. Even in the moments leading up to the way she'd said it, the things they'd done and the gravity of them. Somehow, he hadn't been sure. Now, faced with her feelings, he wasn't sure how to read his own.

"It wasn't a mistake," he managed.

"Then it wasn't a mistake."

Her fingers fell to his chest.

Moments later, they were picking his clothes up off of the floor, handing them over so that he would have something to wear. it took an eternity for him to pull them on, as if they weren't really his anymore. Somehow, in the span of a little under an hour, it was as if his entire world had shifted. Not imperceptibly, either. The reality he had before was but a dream. Now, he figured, he belonged to Naminé. The feelings she stirred in him were hard to ignore.

He felt sure that he could never forget them.

"Do you want me to tell her with you?"

"No," Sora said, immediately. "I'll tell her alone. I have to."

"Is this really what you want, Sora?"

Sora nodded. He ran a hand through his hair and inhaled sharply.

"Yeah, yeah."

Naminé's left arm snaked around her back to grab her right. She stared up at him, unblinking, for some time. He didn't know what they were, in that moment, or how long it took her to break the silence.


End file.
